During the Summers of 2011 and 2014, I had the privilege of co-mentoring 4 talented students from Dos Pueblos High School in the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB) Robotics Challenge - a rigorous six-week summer internship intended to teach the students concepts from robotics, feedback control, and software development through project-based learning.  During this time, the students used Java to program iRobot Creates to perform various robotic tasks with feedback of the robots' position and orientation from a Vicon Motion Capture system.  The students used Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control and even nonlinear control to achieve such tasks as parking at a point (with 2mm accuracy), driving on a circle at a nominal speed, and coordinating multiple robots to simultaneously traverse a circle and spread themselves apart on the circle.  One of the more challenging tasks involved using a single Create to push a coffee can on caster wheels into a pre-specified goal region.  The can's position is reported by Vicon, but the unpredictable motion of the can and the fact that both objects are cylinders make the objective quite difficult and elicit numerous creative approaches.  The videos below showcase a number of these projects and more.  

The Group from Summer 2011 

The Group from Summer 2014 

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